So Exciting!
It’s the little things.
I got a new book! I know how cool is that?
Well it’s a new book on clicker training. Used to train dolphins and quite common in the dog world it is still mostly unheard of for horses. So of course if it’s not main stream I’ve got to try it.
I’ve made it through the first couple of chapters and it’s fascinating. I was able to sneak out and work Nevel during the child’s morning nap so we tried it out just a little. We tried targeting. It sounded, and seemed to be, very simple. I brought my beautiful purple lunge whip and every time he touched it with his nose I clicked my clicker and he got a cookie. The point being to teach him to associate the click with a reward and realize that he did something to cause it. I’m not sure yet how this carries on into something useful. I guess I will have to finish the book.
Also, I’m getting a tack room!
Life is so very very exciting.
In our yard sits a building that at one time was the bunkhouse where the hired hand lived. I planted flowers up it, but mostly it has sat there rotting for many years now. Generations have used it for storage but now the roof on one side had caved in and it was deteriorating at a much quicker rate.
A bundle of tin was discovered that had been ordered for it years ago then forgotten. So my occasional carpenter husband and his pay-loader driving father re-roofed the west/worst side. I tried to help but we used up the Small Goblin Child’s brief happy patient period quickly. I spent most of the time in the house trying to get her to sleep. Seldom have I been jealous of anyone but I have to admit I envied my brother for living close to my mom. She baby sat for him all the time while he worked on his house. It sure would have made this easier. I think he’s had his share and now she needs to move out here. Fortunately the father-in-law showed up to help and was, I’m sure, way more help then I ever could have been. I love the way they use the pay-loader for scaffolding.
Now we simply need to finish the other side of the roof, clean out decades of carefully stored “stuff”, and haul all of our junk over. Oh yeah, it doesn’t just get to be my tack room. That is merely a pleasant side effect. Mostly it will be a storage shed for gardening supplies and all the other misalliance “stuff” that currently fills our back porch. Eventually we will get this house organized so we all fit.
